'IL-Informed' skits are ill-conceived
TELEVISION | Local comedy show has potential, but ...
'IL-Informed," a half-hour comedy pilot airing tonight, features some of the best and brightest Second City and Schadenfreude comedians.
It's attempting to be a locally produced, topical comedy show in the vein of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" or the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.'s "This Hour Has 22 Minutes."
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But it doesn't quite live up to its potential. Interviews and investigative segments don't really follow the standard TV news format, and some of the news being spoofed is dated.
The brightest spot in the whole affair is Kate James. Whether she's playing an over-zealous fan of public television, a moronic PBS pledge drive hostess or a super-pushy real estate agent, the lone female member of Schadenfreude outshines her "IL-Informed" male counterparts.
Sandy Marshall also is amusing as Hassan Ali, a clueless freelance reporter investigating the ins and outs of the Chicago housing market. The skit would have been better served if modeled after an actual news segment, specifically in terms of its excessive length. In its failure to note the current downturn in the housing market, the piece isn't all that timely, either.
A segment in which advice column letters are read and then answered by edited sound clips from Mayor Daley also works, but it's questionable how much more comedic mileage the show can get out of what is essentially a one-joke skit.
Another skit between an intellectual hipster (Justin Kaufmann) and an obnoxious Cubs fan (Ithamar Enriquez) arguing over who gets to gentrify a neighborhood probably could have used a third comedian as someone being priced out of the neighborhood by the two bickering white boys.
As the show's host, Joe Canale seems both bored and uneasy. A segment in which he interviews Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) falls flat.
Tunney is no stranger to the spotlight. (Let's face it: The man is a media hound. Is there any alderman who gets more face time with the camera?) Unfortunately, the skit is too calculated to even be funny. When correspondents on "The Daily Show" go out in the field, some politicians think they're sitting down for legitimate interviews, and it's amusing to watch them squirm when they're tossed off-the-wall questions in rapid-fire succession.
Tunney is clearly in on the joke, which makes it unfunny.
"IL-Informed" is a bit too ill-conceived in its present form to make you laugh much or hold your attention.
